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Podcast: New Books in Anthropology
Episode: Harvey Whitehouse, "Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World" (Harvard UP, 2024)
Description: Each of us is endowed with an inheritance--a set of evolved biases and cultural tools that shape every facet of our behavior. For countless generations, this inheritance has taken us to ever greater heights: driving the rise of more sophisticated technologies, more organized religions, more expansive empires. But now, for the first time, it's failing us. We find ourselves hurtling toward a future of unprecedented political polarization, deadlier war, and irreparable environmental destruction.In Inheritance: The Evolutionary Origins of the Modern World (Harvard University Press, 2024), renowned anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse offers a sweeping account of how our biases have...